Calling All Final Fantasy Fans: Making a DnD 5e FF conversion and need help!

[Giegue]

As the title says. I am in the process of creating a D20 Final Fantasy system based on the 5e ruleset, but I need help. I have basic ideas, but I need help with fleshing out certain areas of the system. It is essentially 5e as-per the player's handbook, but with the following changes:

* All races except human (Hume) are removed and to be replaced with custom races based on those from the final fantasy games. Some of the standard 5e races may however get included in slightly altered final-fantasy-ized forms. (EX. Elves as the basis for Elezen, Halflings as a basis for Lalafells etc...)

* All classes are removed, and replaced with classes that represent the final fantasy jobs. Rather than have a single class for each job, the game only has three main "classes" which then divide into individual jobs. The three base classes map to the chassis of existing 5e classes, but with some slightly edited features. The three "classes" are fighter (roughly maps to fighter), mage (roughly maps to wizard) and troubadour (roughly maps to rogue). At first level you get both a role-defining class feature (So fighting style for fighters, sneak attack for troubadours and Spellcasting for mages) and your job title/starting job. Your starting job/job title is not an archetype in the same sense as 5e. Instead, it gives you first level features that further define your role.

As you progress in your class you eventually gain your "Job Improvement" which works as your bogstandard 5e archetype except that they have a prerequisite based on a choice you made earlier in your class. As an example of this, lets take the mage. Other that it's starting job, the big choice the mage makes at first level is which of the three mental stats(Int, Wis, Cha) it will use as it's spellcasting ability. Eventually, due to how the vairous mages have been tied to vastly different magical origins over the course of FF each type of magic is not tied to 1 score. Instead, approaches to that color of magic are. Thus, while white mages, black mages and red mages cast off any mental of their choice, what mental they choose impacts their job improvement and the RP of how they are using their magic. Each job improvement has a prerequisite of "X mental stat as your spellcasting ability" I.E. a white mage can become either a white wizard (wisdom), devout (charisma),or scholar (intelligence), a black mage a black wizard (int), Magus (Cha or Wis), a red mage a red wizard (cha) or sage (Wis or Int)

Likewise, fighters job improvement would be based on fighting style choice (I.E. knight and dark knight requiring the two-handed fighting style, archer the archery style, fencer dueling etc..) and troubadour would actually be based on choice of skill expertise gained at level 2 as-per the rogue (I.E. theif would require expertise in theif's tools, Bard expertise in performance, ninja stealth etc...).

Note that Only certain jobs will be covered in "Core" More "exotic" job types Time Mages, Blue Mage, mimes, Summoners etc... will likely have to be released in expansions. (with summoner possibly being an entire class as appose to just a mage job)

* Magic works as 5e, but with MP (Spell Points) instead of spell slots and most of the spells are going to be custom. Those that are from 5e will likewise need to be renamed to "fit" with the FF theme.

Other then these points, the game will function like 5e as-per the PHB. However, while I got a lot of good concepts going, I need help with the finer details. I am a great big concept guy, but when it comes to the nitty-gritty of hombrewing I often need help. Thus, I am turning to you, the final fantasy fans of the Playground. I am looking for anybody willing to lend their time and effort to this project. I am mainly looking for people to do the following things on the project...

* Monster Design - This is one area of homebrew I have 0 experience with in ANY edition, so if there are people out there who love to make monsters, I really am in need of your help with this.

* Class/Job Creation - While I have a pretty good idea of how I want to handle the Jobs/classes making all the rules for them by myself would be a lot of work. So I'm looking for others who want to help bring to life the jobs of final fantasy within the basic framework I provide. Since I tend to favor casters in my homebrew, I'm especially looking for martial enthusiasts, though help with any of the classes, martial, caster or otherwise would be great!

* Race Design - See Class design. A hell of a ton of work for one person.

* Balance-Checking - I am notorious for making overpowered ****. Thus, I would appreciate having at least one person around to reign me in. This role can overlap with any and all of the others above.

So, with all that out of the way, does anybody want "In" on Final Fantasy 5e?

[DiscipleofBob]

I've actually been working on creating a campaign based on Final Fantasy I for starters, and then if it works out going to other games in the franchise.

I'm new to the home brewing on 5e but sign me up for this.

[Mr.Moron]

I wouldn't mind doing some class design, but I tend to be pretty particular about how I like doing things so I'm not sure how able I'd be to follow a template.

Do you have a specific Final Fantasy in mind? You mention Lalafells (FF14), but aren't explicit about it. The different universes don't really play nice with each other and even the visions of the Jobs don't always translate 100%.

[R.Shackleford]

FF XII is being remastered with the Zodiac job system, why not set up a FF XII type system?

Choose a class, that class gives you techniques that you can buy from XP.

You can equip or wear anything, you just may not be able to bring out that item's full power (thia gets around the weird Liscense issue haha).

Each class could come with a piece of paper that had their board on it and you could x off what abilities you but. However you can only but abilities that are adjacent to ones you already know.

[barbecube]

I think you might be going about this in a way that creates more work than you need to.

Particularly, you're throwing out a lot of babies and a lot of bathwater if you start building classes and races from the ground up. I think you'd be better off retaining stuff that has a basic FF analogue and not really altering it, and creating a small to medium amount of new stuff just so you can include special FF identity stuff that makes it feel like FF.

Specifically, I definitely think you can avoid making a lot of classes. You might want to refluff some of them, but "white mage" for instance maps onto Light or Life domain clerics very well, and "black mage" is clearly simply an Evoker wizard. You might go so far as to make custom spells, but I don't think you by any means must.

After you've pinned down points of commonality you can build custom classes, subclasses, or feats for points of difference, like summoning, in-combat theft, and dragoons. This should save you a ton of work and help address problems you've already identified like your habit of making stuff that's OP.

[Mr.Moron]

I think you might be going about this in a way that creates more work than you need to.

Particularly, you're throwing out a lot of babies and a lot of bathwater if you start building classes and races from the ground up. I think you'd be better off retaining stuff that has a basic FF analogue and not really altering it, and creating a small to medium amount of new stuff just so you can include special FF identity stuff that makes it feel like FF.

Specifically, I definitely think you can avoid making a lot of classes. You might want to refluff some of them, but "white mage" for instance maps onto Light or Life domain clerics very well, and "black mage" is clearly simply an Evoker wizard. You might go so far as to make custom spells, but I don't think you by any means must.

Not at all. Casters in Final Fantasy universes are usually far more narrowly defined than D&D casters. The black mage can blast and has a couple of combat buffs and thats about it. There are rarely any analogues to things like wall of stone or prestidigitation or if they are they'd normally fall under ritual magic. A black mage is far closer to a 3.5 Warlock than anything resembling a 5e wizard.

[R.Shackleford]

Not at all. Casters in Final Fantasy universes are usually far more narrowly defined than D&D casters. The black mage can blast and has a couple of combat buffs and thats about it. There are rarely any analogues to things like wall of stone or prestidigitation or if they are they'd normally fall under ritual magic. A black mage is far closer to a 3.5 Warlock than anything resembling a 5e wizard.

3e, 4e, and 5e casters are like Superman, they just have so many powers that it is utterly ridiculous.

Though I wish my casters could shoot mini-robot versions of himself out of his hand that had all the exact same powers as him...

Final Fantasy characters are typically less Mary-Sue when it comes to what they can do.

[barbecube]

Not at all. Casters in Final Fantasy universes are usually far more narrowly defined than D&D casters. The black mage can blast and has a couple of combat buffs and thats about it. There are rarely any analogues to things like wall of stone or prestidigitation or if they are they'd normally fall under ritual magic. A black mage is far closer to a 3.5 Warlock than anything resembling a 5e wizard.

Sure, whatever. Use warlocks. My point is that it's not a good idea to throw away all the classes and start from scratch when you can repurpose stuff that's already there.

[R.Shackleford]

Sure, whatever. Use warlocks. My point is that it's not a good idea to throw away all the classes and start from scratch when you can repurpose stuff that's already there.

Except that what we already have doesn't work for Final Fantasy characters.

Actually...

I wouldn't create classes at all.

I would create characters (avatars) that has a specific class or whatever and then allow the player to shape that character's character.

Make it more like FF 9, you get to controls Steiner and determine the type of personality he has... But Steiner has specific abilities that are relegated to that specific character.

[ravencroft0]

D20 Final Fantasy already exists, though it uses Pathfinder. Google it. Use the conversion guide to make it 5e friendly. Cheers!

[Ninja_Prawn]

* Monster Design - This is one area of homebrew I have 0 experience with in ANY edition, so if there are people out there who love to make monsters, I really am in need of your help with this.

So, with all that out of the way, does anybody want "In" on Final Fantasy 5e?

I have been known to 'brew monsters for 5e when I have a bit of free time. If you have any specific requests (there's a lot of monsters in FF games!), I'd be happy to take a crack at them. Plus, you'll always need monsters, regardless of what approach you take to the rest of the project.

Spoiler: My FF history, for reference

Show

FFX - I've probably logged 500 hours on this one. Finished the main game, completed most of the endgame extras. Still my favourite.
FF Tactics Advance - completed the main game.
FFX-2 - got to the final dungeon, then never bothered to complete it. I'd like to go back and finish it, but my PS2 is packed away in the attic...
FFI - played to the first major boss, but then decided I liked FFII better (got them both at the same time).
FFII - can't remember exactly how far I got now, but I reckon I did most of the main story.
FFXII - spent a lot of time on this, got as far as Archades, maybe a bit further.
FFVIII - played at the behest of an ex. Did about 80% of the game before the relationship ended.
FF Tactics WotL - got to the point where it started getting difficult, but I wasn't enjoying it as much as Tactics Advance, so I stopped.
FFXIII - got to the final boss, couldn't work out how to beat it.
FFVII - I can see why people loved this one, but it was showing its age by the time I got to it. I played through maybe 60 or 70% of the main story before I got tired of it.
FFIII - only about 10 hours on this one. I'm planning to go back to it at some point.

[Giegue]

I know of the PF/3.5e FFD20, but I don't want to use that. I am specifically looking to make a 5e take, one that has the simplicity and math of 5e rather then the innate complexity of PF/3.5e. So, with that in mind, it looks like I have a fair bit of interest. However, we all seem to have a wide range of ideas and thus I feel some more "real time" communication between all of us would really help to hammer down what direction we want to take this thing. Thus, I've decided to set up a Roll20 game for us to both IM chat in and rough playtest our creation. If your still interested in this project, please PM or give me your Roll20 name here on the forums so I can add you to the game. I'd also like to know what meeting times work for you, so if your still interested please reply back to this thread with both your Roll20 names(OR PM it if you don't want it thrown out in public) and what meeting times work best for you.

[Ninja_Prawn]

I'm also Ninja_Prawn on Roll20. My best times for live chat are probably 7 to 10pm GMT (so early afternoon in the US). But if I'm just creating monsters, you might not need love IM with me so much.

[Giegue]

Thanks! I'd add you, but it seems I need email addresses, not D20 usernames -__-. SO to all those who have intrest in the project instead of giving me your Roll20 name please PM me your email on the forums. I mean, if you want to reply with it thats fine, but I'm not expecting anybody to want to post their email in the open so just PMing it to me is fine.

[DiscipleofBob]

I can replicate most of the main FF classes just fine with standard 5e character creation. You have to remember the difference between a blaster FF Black Mage and a utilitarian D&D wizard is really just game design and spell selection. An FF Black Mage doesn't get access to utilitarian spells like Prestidigitation or divination because it's not part of the video game design, so there's no way to implement such spells in-game.

But we're talking about a tabletop system. Sure in the video game you can only use your fire spell to deal damage except for a few cinematic sequences, but in tabletop if the player wants to have creative uses for their spells or wants to wield arcane power for something other than raw damage, let them.

You've already got a tall order implementing the rest of FF: races, equipment, items, monsters. Start with something that isn't such a huge pain to balance. Later, if 5e character creation just can't get the job done when it comes to emulating certain FF characters, then see if a subclass or class is necessary.

Not to mention the homebrew class system you're talking about would by definition not cover most of the FF games. Magicite, Materia, guardian forces, limit breaks by any name, and job-changing crystals are already going to be difficult to implement and those are vital plot elements of their respective games.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Thanks! I'd add you, but it seems I need email addresses, not D20 usernames -__-. SO to all those who have intrest in the project instead of giving me your Roll20 name please PM me your email on the forums. I mean, if you want to reply with it thats fine, but I'm not expecting anybody to want to post their email in the open so just PMing it to me is fine.

As I recall, you should be able to point a 'join link' think that we can click and be automatically added to the 'game'. That way, no one needs to use any e-mails!

[Giegue]

Don't you need to be invited to the game first? Thats the issue....inviting you all to the game without having to make the group public on Roll20.

[Bruno Carvalho]

Feel free to poach class/abilities ideas from my own FFRPG at this GiTP thread.

[Mr.Moron]

I can replicate most of the main FF classes just fine with standard 5e character creation. You have to remember the difference between a blaster FF Black Mage and a utilitarian D&D wizard is really just game design and spell selection. An FF Black Mage doesn't get access to utilitarian spells like Prestidigitation or divination because it's not part of the video game design, so there's no way to implement such spells in-game.

But we're talking about a tabletop system. Sure in the video game you can only use your fire spell to deal damage except for a few cinematic sequences, but in tabletop if the player wants to have creative uses for their spells or wants to wield arcane power for something other than raw damage, let them.

Again, no. It's not just a video game convention. The final fantasy games especially the later ones (10+) make a point of calling out how magic effects and interacts with their world narrative. See say FF12 and how they introduce the Paling to account for why fortresses and walled cities are still a thing in the age of airships and artillery mages. If stuff like Fly, Shape Stone, or the Conjure spells were a thing we'd see the consequences for those in the world. Even the cutscene-power-to-the-max villians with all kinds of insane abilities don't do even 1/4th the thing D&D mages do even outside the game mechanics.

Not to mention the homebrew class system you're talking about would by definition not cover most of the FF games. Magicite, Materia, guardian forces, limit breaks by any name, and job-changing crystals are already going to be difficult to implement and those are vital plot elements of their respective games.

I think I agree a generic "Final Fantasy" is kind of doomed approach. The thing about Final Fantasy is each game is very much it's own thing. Even common elements like Moogles or Airships can follow radically different rules and conventions across games. Common terms like "Materia" can mean fairly different things. That said the universes themselves are rich enough to support a whole game. So picking a target game is probably the first step for OP.


EDIT: I don't have roll 20, but best of luck to the project!

[DiscipleofBob]

Again, no. It's not just a video game convention. The final fantasy games especially the later ones (10+) make a point of calling out how magic effects and interacts with their world narrative. See say FF12 and how they introduce the Paling to account for why fortresses and walled cities are still a thing in the age of airships and artillery mages. If stuff like Fly, Shape Stone, or the Conjure spells were a thing we'd see the consequences for those in the world. Even the cutscene-power-to-the-max villians with all kinds of insane abilities don't do even 1/4th the thing D&D mages do even outside the game mechanics.

The majority of D&D settings don't have those things. That's more of a Final Fantasy vs Tippyverse argument.

There's no reason a game couldn't be run in a Final Fantasy setting with D&D-style magic. Hell, MP wasn't even a thing until later games. In the beginning they used Maybe a few house rules to account for magic's role in the setting, lack of proper deities for clerics, that sort of thing.

If I'm playing a Black Mage, there's no reason for me to be completely confined to damage-dealing spells and debuffs. There's room for creativity.

It's only once you get into things like Materia or Limit Breaks that things start to require a little more work.

[Mr.Moron]

The majority of D&D settings don't have those things. That's more of a Final Fantasy vs Tippyverse argument.

? Those are all core spells I named. They're standard D&D fare and a part of every setting where not explicitly called out otherwise.

There's no reason a game couldn't be run in a Final Fantasy setting with D&D-style magic. Hell, MP wasn't even a thing until later games. In the beginning they used Maybe a few house rules to account for magic's role in the setting, lack of proper deities for clerics, that sort of thing.

If I'm playing a Black Mage, there's no reason for me to be completely confined to damage-dealing spells and debuffs. There's room for creativity.

I'm inclined to disagree magic in FF & Magic in D&D are just totally different beasts. If something claiming to be an FF game had mages suddenly controlling the weather, flying under their own power, gaining telepathy, and conjuring objects I'd be totally pulled out. That isn't what magic does in any Final Fantasy universe and it's never been hinted at.

MP vs Spells-Per-Day is a less important distinction since that is a pure game construct in the FF context and only meant to meter how often you can sling spells. Whatever. Spells-per-Day is fine if you wanna roll that way.

D&D Magic is meant to kind of emulate every fantasy story ever, that's why there is a spell for everything and the kitchen sink. If some wizard did something in some famous story in the past 500 years, the D&D writers put that in. Black Mages are black mages. They're not Merlin+Gandalf+Shazam+Jafar+Oracle-At-Delphi the way D&D wizards are.

[DiscipleofBob]

? Those are all core spells I named. They're standard D&D fare and a part of every setting where not explicitly called out otherwise.




I'm inclined to disagree magic in FF & Magic in D&D are just totally different beasts. If something claiming to be an FF game had mages suddenly controlling the weather, flying under their own power, gaining telepathy, and conjuring objects I'd be totally pulled out. That isn't what magic does in any Final Fantasy universe and it's never been hinted at.

Weather control - Thundaga. Air spells. Flash Rain. Most summon animations. Weather effects don't have a lot of in-game usage but there's no reason to suggest they couldn't have an effect.
Telepathy - Well there's no way to do implement that in a FF-style video game, except for meta gaming, party switching, etc.
Flight - Airships. The Float spell. Dragoons Jump ability. Terra Branford flying as an Esper.
Conjuring Objects - You mean Summoning? Or do you mean the many times the evil wizard erects a magic barrier in your path?

Hell, even Divination can be interpreted as just going back to an earlier save point if you really want to.

What you seem to be desrcribing is the real world implications of having populations of people who can use those spells regularly, which is basically what Tippyverse is about.

If your games typically involve Unchecked Batman wizards or something similar, or having these things in a FF game would take you out of immersion, fair enough. I guess we can just disagree without detailing the thread further. I still don't see any real reason traditional D&D can't be incorporated to an FF setting.

[Giegue]

Well, you can still use the traditional D&D classes as a basis, but you'd have to make new archetypes for them and swap their spell lists for more FF-themed spells. Like, the -chassis- of the wizard class works, you would just have to ditch the archetypes and make it custom black and white magic spell lists...and that was the basic idea I had. Rather than make ENTIRELY new classes, I'd take familiar 5e classes and make them into FF jobs by making them custom archetypes (I.E. Warrior (Fighter) getting things like Knight, Dark Knight etc... as archetypes instead of battle master, eldritch knight etc..) and in the case of the spellcasters custom archetypes and spells/casting. So the familiar classes would be there, just re-tooled for FF settings...

[Ninja_Prawn]

Hmm... Thundaga is more like Call Lightning than Control Weather.

Maybe the answer is a level cap, like E6? It seems to me that the most powerful spells available to playable characters in FF games (excluding limit breaks/summons) are around 4^th or 5^th level spells in D&D.

[DiscipleofBob]

Well, you can still use the traditional D&D classes as a basis, but you'd have to make new archetypes for them and swap their spell lists for more FF-themed spells. Like, the -chassis- of the wizard class works, you would just have to ditch the archetypes and make it custom black and white magic spell lists...and that was the basic idea I had. Rather than make ENTIRELY new classes, I'd take familiar 5e classes and make them into FF jobs by making them custom archetypes (I.E. Warrior (Fighter) getting things like Knight, Dark Knight etc... as archetypes instead of battle master, eldritch knight etc..) and in the case of the spellcasters custom archetypes and spells/casting. So the familiar classes would be there, just re-tooled for FF settings...

I can definitely get behind new FF-themed subclasses.

I actually intend on running a 5e game possibly on the forums using the plot and setting of FFI.

I'll send you a link when it happens, and provided it doesn't die a slow painful PbP death, maybe it'll be a good exercise in the effects of D&D abilities in an FF setting.

[Mr.Moron]

Hmm... Thundaga is more like Call Lightning than Control Weather.

Maybe the answer is a level cap, like E6? It seems to me that the most powerful spells available to playable characters in FF games (excluding limit breaks/summons) are around 4^th or 5^th level spells in D&D.

I'm not sure that's a perfect solution. Final Fantasy characters do pretty regularly fight gods, and do have some analogues to high level spells. For example Earthquake, Meteor Swarm, Heal, and even say Time Stop all have close FF analogues. It's far more the breadth & variety of effects that are limited in Final Fantasy more so than the sheer power level of those effects. Ultima is something players can acquire in some games and for the understated animations it has in the combat abstraction, it's the kind of thing that really feels like at the very least it can level city block from a more lore-oriented perspective.

I do think the you could use the existing wizard chassis without issue (though it wouldn't be an optimal solution), however really would need to re-write the spell list from the ground up and I'm not sure it would be big enough to really feel right on the wizard chassis. Knowing which FF universe we'd be dealing with would go a long way to narrowing down the specific problems that need to be dealt with though.


EDIT:

Well, you can still use the traditional D&D classes as a basis, but you'd have to make new archetypes for them and swap their spell lists for more FF-themed spells. Like, the -chassis- of the wizard class works, you would just have to ditch the archetypes and make it custom black and white magic spell lists...and that was the basic idea I had. Rather than make ENTIRELY new classes, I'd take familiar 5e classes and make them into FF jobs by making them custom archetypes (I.E. Warrior (Fighter) getting things like Knight, Dark Knight etc... as archetypes instead of battle master, eldritch knight etc..) and in the case of the spellcasters custom archetypes and spells/casting. So the familiar classes would be there, just re-tooled for FF settings...

There's a guy already doing this particular project on the Final Fantasy 14 subreddit, with pretty high production values. Though with him it's a been a mix of new classes (Dark Knight, Astrologian) and Archetypes (Monk):

( https://www.reddit.com/user/SilentSoren )

Examples of his work: http://imgur.com/a/Tq0kz

I haven't really looked at them in-depth and so can offer no opinion as to their quality as classes, balance or how well they capture the FF feel. Just it's a good project to be aware of in this context I think.

[Ninja_Prawn]

I'm not sure that's a perfect solution.

It's almost certainly not - I was just thinking out loud.

I do think the you could use the existing wizard chassis

Thinking about this though, maybe it would be better to start from the sorcerer chassis? The newer FF games don't tend to involve any preparing of spells; once you've learned them, they're always available (as long as you're in the right job).

[Mr.Moron]

Thinking about this though, maybe it would be better to start from the sorcerer chassis? The newer FF games don't tend to involve any preparing of spells; once you've learned them, they're always available (as long as you're in the right job).

Sorcerer is a better fit, I agree. I was more clarifying that my objection was less to the general class mechanics than the specific magic they use.

[Giegue]

Yeah, I considered using sorcerer in place of wizard, but if we use spell points from the DMG as an MP stand-in then sorcerery points become problematic as converting MP/spell points to sorcerery points can lead to some broken shenanigans. At the same time, though, with the lack of versatility the "casters" will have due to the re-written spell lists, perhaps letting them metamagic more would not be -that- big an issue? I can't say for certain, however, so we'll have to see. However, all of this is easily avoided by simply using a slot system as-per 5e.

[Ninja_Prawn]

perhaps letting them metamagic more would not be -that- big an issue?

Well metamagic definitely exists in FF games. I got a lot of mileage out of Magic Booster and Doublecast in FFX, and did you ever use the Wring in FFX-2? Quicken Spell much?